Blood and Ashes
by Fading wind
Summary: His golden eyes rose to meet Roy's obsidian ones, and for a moment, neither said anything. [RoyEd]


Title: Blood and Ashes  
Pairing: Roy/Ed  
Rating: PG  
Beta's: Lokogato-sama, Cuylerjade and Reject from the back of the bus.  
Spoilers: For end-of-series.  
Warnings: Yaoi. Implied m/m sex.  
For: The fullservicefma LJ comm, July/August fanfiction contest. The prompt is "uniform".  
Word Count: 1,079  
Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist doesn't belong to me.  
Author's Notes: This took me so long to come up with. I had a tiny idea at first, but it was only enough to write a short flash fic, certainly not more than 1000 words. So I decided to hunt for inspiration, and visited a few Japanese fanart sites. One of them had Edward holding a military jacket, and that's how this fic grew. A special thank to my beta's for their wonderful concrit, especially **lokogato-sama**.

**Blood and Ashes**

"I can smell it," Edward said softly, with a wry smile on his face.

"Smell what?" Roy asked as casually as he possibly could, eyeing the military uniform that the blond was burying his nose in. That was his old military uniform, from the days of the Ishbal War. After coming out of the war alive, he'd dunked the uniform in a bucket of water and washed it with the most sweet-smelling soap he could find, more times than he could count. But the blue uniform, he thought, still seemed to be stained red with blood and black with soot and ashes, no matter how hard he'd scrubbed.

"I can smell your past," the blond replied, looking at Roy steadily. "I can smell blood and -- "

"Don't."

There was a moment of silence, and Edward Elric lowered his gaze, biting his lower lip. His fingers fiddled with the buttons on the jacket, and then he looked up again, but his eyes still averted Roy's.

"It's fine," Roy's tone was still as nonchalant as ever, but inside him there was a throbbing pain, and he was relieved that Edward wasn't going to continue on, wasn't going to remind him of even more. He should have expected that much of the boy, because he was, after all, not any normal boy.

Edward picked up the other set of uniform, Roy's current one, and sniffed that one too. "Hey, I can smell you distinctly," he announced, grinning. "And I can smell myself." His golden eyes rose to meet Roy's obsidian ones, and for a moment, neither said anything.

Then Edward pounced, pressing his lips onto Roy's. Roy shoved both sets of his military uniform aside, frantically kissing Edward back, and those articles of clothing, along with some others, were soon forgotten as the heat and passion engulfed him.

---

_Edward held the jacket close to him, grasping its rough material, the dark blue colour of it mesmerizing him. He could imagine Roy Mustang, a Major instead of a Colonel, wearing it_,_ but it wasn't an easy job. For the majority of the years Edward spent in the military, his superior officer had been a Colonel. So that was how Edward remembered him. He hadn't known what Roy was like as a Major._

_Younger, definitely. Maybe with a touch of innocence and naivety in his expressions. Would his stride have changed since he became a Colonel? Had it been less arrogant, less powerful and sure of itself? Perhaps._

_So he created his own image of Major Roy Mustang, all the while nuzzling the jacket and taking in its scent._

_He could taste blood and ashes. And then he saw Major Roy Mustang differently. A soldier in the battlefield. The blurry figment of his imagination was suddenly lit up with a bright flash of red and orange. An ignition. A scream. A war._

_There was blood. And ashes._

---

Edward jerked awake, and there were tears in his eyes. He looked around, but the jacket in his dream couldn't be seen anywhere. He blinked, confused, and a tear escaped and trickled down his cheek.

_Blood and ashes._

_Roy._

His eyes flew wide open and then closed tightly as the blond threw himself onto the pillow and let the tears flow freely, soaking through the pillow case.

He didn't have the jacket. He didn't have anything similar to it either. Nothing at all to remind him of his lover. Roy Mustang only existed in his memories.

He couldn't quite remember he had lastwanted to cry so badly. Maybe it was at his mother's funeral, but that has been a long time ago and he had difficulty recalling what had happened. Those memories from his childhood were like mental snapshots in his mind. Age had made those bright colours fade away into pale shades of yellow and brown, almost too faint to be seen. His heart seemed to cease its beating and his stomach clenched. The colour on Roy's photos were still perfect and fresh, but that wasn't to say they wouldn't suffer the same fate as the others one day.

And then Edward would have nothing left. Nothing. Just sadness and emptiness.

At least... at least he could hold on to what he had now. Desperately, he tried to remember Roy's scent. All he could smell were blood and ashes, thick in the air around him.

But, eventually, he remembered, and he smiled. The smell of cologne, slightly sweet, not heavy enough to suffocate but just enough to imply the pride and confidence of the man. How, how could he forget?

He held on to that memory, drowning himself in it. He would wake up next morning and carry on with his life. But for now he would enjoy this fragment of happiness. This last thing he had of his lover.

---

Roy Mustang stared at the two sets of neatly folded military uniform at the bottom of his wardrobe. The one he had worn in the Ishbal War and the one he had worn during the years that Edward had been under his command.

He'd bought a new one before he gone upto the North, but he'd kept both old ones and brought them along with him.

He took out the older one, and sniffed it cautiously. Yes, he could smell it. That familiar smell of blood and ashes. He remembered the night when Edward had done the same, and he had stopped Edward from saying anything about it. He was scared of his own past, forever trying to avoid its dark shadows, but they cast over him all the same, tall and cold and menacing.

His past haunted him so, and he hated it.

He picked up the other set of uniform, and sniffed that one too. It contained another past. Something entirely different, something that he considered much less intimidating. Something that he loved.

It was like Edward had said. The smell of blood and ashes was very, very faint, almost undetectable, because it was buried underneath other scents.

Roy could smell himself. It wasn't easy to describe that smell, but he knew that it was his. And he could also smell another person.

That fierce and passionate and _alive _smell could only belong to one person.

Edward.

Roy found himself smiling, the widest, happiest smile in months, perhaps years -- he'd lost count of the days -- and he felt warm despite the cold weather that surrounded him.

**The End**


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